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Saturday, April 18, 2015

Creating a Good Plan: Part 3

I hope everyone is enjoying the warmer weather! And if you are some place right now where it's cold, then I am so sorry for you.

There is something about the warm weather that just seems to get me motivated, and when it comes to working out and eating healthy, I definitely need a lot of motivation!

Today, I am going to talk about my fitness plan. It is really more of a set of guidelines that I try to follow, rather than a plan.

First, I want to talk about the Lose It app. Before I started watching exactly what I was eating, I could probably consume close to 2500+ calories a day. That is not good! I don't know a whole lot about dieting and fitness, but I know consuming more calories than you are supposed to in one day, is just not good for you. Especially if you aren't working out to burn off any of those calories!

Let me stop for a minute and first tell you what my actual goal was when I first started my fitness plan, because this goal might be different for you. I didn't really want to lose any weight, maybe a couple pounds. I just wanted to start watching what I was eating and how much I was eating every day. I also wanted to get back into shape. I was running out of breath walking up and down my steps, for goodness sake. I am going to be 33 and would like to try for another baby soon, so it is very important that I am eating healthy and staying in shape. Plus, as we get older things start to slow down, we are at more of a risk for different things and we want to be able to take care of our families and feel good about ourselves. So even if your goals are a little different than mine, the end result is still the same.

Now back to the Lose It app. I love this app for so many reasons. First, you enter in your personal information. Then you select your current weight and goal weight and you select how many pounds you want to loose each week. The app will then automatically calculate how many calories you are supposed to have a day if you want to reach your goal. There are 4 different sections for each day, breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. You can select from a list of foods and drinks that have already been entered into the app or you can create your own food and enter in all the info yourself. Pretty soon the app starts to recognize the items you eat frequently.

There is also a section for exercise. After you exercise, go into the app and enter what you did and for how long and then the app will recalculate your calories and add more for that day. You don't always have to eat more just because your calorie amount went up, but it is nice to know that maybe you can treat yourself to something a little extra.

Here are a few more tips that I try to follow on a daily and weekly basis:

1. Allow yourself 1 or 2 cheat days, depending on your week. Let's be honest, we all need to treat ourselves to the things we love, because if we don't it will make our plan that much harder.

2. Try to work out at least 3-4 times a week. I go for a long walk as well as do my ab workout for two of the days and then I do my fitness circuit on the other two days.

3. Try not to eat anything after 7:30-8pm. This can be very hard. That's why I said 'try'. It's not good to eat anything within a few hours of sleeping, because your body slows down. Anything you eat is just going to sit there.

4. Try not to order out a lot, especially fast food. You can still enjoy a lot of the things you love when you cook at home. Plus you are saving yourself a ton of calories and money. Try to go for foods with a small ingredient list. All that other stuff they add is no good!!!

5. Drink a lot of water! Or in my case seltzer! They say that you should drink half of your body weight in ounces everyday. It's ok to treat yourself to a latte or a iced coffee once in awhile, but try to cut out soda and other sugary drinks as much as possible! Water is best!!

5. The biggest one for me is not comparing myself to others. Everyone has their own struggles. Not everyone is working toward the same goal, but the outcome is the same. To be healthy and feel good! Try to be there for one another to encourage them and keep them motivated. That's what helped me!

I hope this information will help you to create some sort of fitness goal or plan so that you can eat better and stay healthy. Unless of course you already are! Then you go girl!

Here is a link to my fitness board on Pinterest. There are some healthy recipes and different exercise plans on there.

Remember, you have to figure out what you want your personal goal to be. Not what Jane Doe's goal is. We are all different and we all have different needs! So our plans will all be different!